Nepali PM Oli dials diplomacy on border dispute with India

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Nepali PM spotlights border dispute with India

By Our Special Correspondent

New Delhi, July 23: Nepal’s Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli has said that his government will work through diplomacy to resolve the boundary dispute with India. In his last tenure as the prime minister, Oli had created flutter by claiming Indian territories as a part of Nepal by publishing new administrative maps.

Oli won the vote of confidence in the Nepali parliament yesterday. In his reply to the discussion on the trust motion, Oli said that his government will resolve the border disputes with India through talks and diplomatic channels.

Oli also said that the backdrop of talks with India on resolving the international boundary will be ‘Treaty of Sagauli’. This treaty was signed in 1816 between the British government in India and the Gurkha chiefs after two years of war.

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Nepal claims to have a boundary dispute with India in the Kalapani and Susta regions. Kathmandu came out with a new administrative map in 2020 when Oli was the prime minister. The Kathmandu-based media claims that Oli-led administration had responded to India issuing a new administrative map in 2019.

Nepal claims the areas of Kalapani, Lipulekh, and Limpiyadhura as own, while they are part of India as per the administrative map. Oli in his last tenure had raked the boundary controversy to test India and Nepal bilateral relations.

Britannica describes Treaty of Sagauli, signed on March 4, 1816, as an “agreement between the Gurkha chiefs of Nepal and the British Indian government that ended the Anglo-Nepalese (Gurkha) War (1814–16)”.

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It also states: “By the treaty, Nepal renounced all claim to the disputed Tarai, or lowland country, and ceded its conquests west of the Kali River and extending to the Sutlej River. Nepal remained independent, but it received a British resident with the status of an ambassador to an independent country rather than of the controlling agent of the supreme government in an Indian state.”

On questions of boundary dispute with India, Oli said in parliament that the “boundary dispute with India will be resolved through talks and diplomatic channels, on the basis of the Treaty of Sugauli, various maps, and historical facts and evidence”.

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The Nepali prime minister reiterated that resolving the boundary dispute with India “has been a consistent commitment of the government of Nepal”.

Oli also stated that the boundary dispute was discussed during the seventh Nepal-India foreign minister-level meeting in Kathmandu on January 4, 2024. Oli became the prime minister after UML and the Nepali Congress joined hands to oust Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’. Oli will be the prime minister for two years.

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